ATLANTA -- His quarterback had a passer rating just three points shy of perfection. His running back, the reigning NFL Most Valuable Player, had 198 yards from scrimmage and three touchdowns. And his offense as a whole averaged a heady 9.4 yards a snap.

So one would assume St. Louis Rams coach Mike Martz was feeling pretty good again about his high-flying attack.

But truth be told, it was the Rams' defense upon which a relieved Martz heaped the most praise after a lopsided victory Sunday over the Atlanta Falcons.

"Magnificent" was the term Martz used to describe the effort, and rightly so, especially given the adversity under which the St. Louis defense entered the game.

	Atlanta's Chris Chandler got knocked out of the game on a hit by St. Louis' Grant Wistrom.

In pasting the Falcons for a fifth consecutive outing, this time by a 35-6 count, the Rams' offense again had its way and Atlanta weakside linebacker Chris Draft and strong safety Johndale Carty likely spent Sunday night restlessly tossing with nightmares of Marshall Faulk swinging out of the backfield and streaking past them for big gains. Perhaps they can successfully cover the Rams' star in their dreams because they certainly couldn't in real life, as Faulk caught six passes for 128 yards and three scores.

Quicker than even a rapid eye movement, Faulk scored long and short and in-between and demonstrated how foolish it was for Martz to get the ball into his hands for just 14 "touches" in last Monday night's depressing loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

But even the magnificent Faulk, whose receiving yards tied for the second most in what has been a celebrated career, was forced to bow to a Rams defense that held Atlanta to a pair of Jay Feely field goals and withstood a furious second quarter in which it was on the field for more than 13 minutes and logged 22 snaps.

In fact, as Faulk walked toward an interview room in the bowels of the Georgia Dome on Sunday night, he passed the stall of Dre' Bly and winked at the third-year cornerback. The gesture was a quick but meaningful one, sort of a visual "attaboy" to the player whose big play jump-started the Rams and a validation that St. Louis is no one-trick pony in 2001.

"When you score quick, whether it's on offense or defense, it always takes some air out of the other guy," Faulk said. "But especially when the defense scores, and on the road, that is just a huge lift for you. It sort of stuns the crowd, it shakes up the (opposition) offense, it allows you to breathe a little easier. And tonight, it happened so quickly, you sensed in a way (the Falcons) might not recover."

For sure, the interception and 56-yard touchdown return by Bly, on just the fourth snap by the Atlanta offense, was the equivalent of a first-round TKO. Never mind that the Falcons had the ball for 26 more snaps than St. Louis, rolled to 20 first downs and held a monster edge of nearly 11 minutes in time of possession (35:24 to 24:36).

A defensive unit much maligned in 2000 -- and seemingly held together by baling wire and duct tape for stretches of the game -- made certain Atlanta's playoff aspirations took a fairly significant dent. The defeat snapped the Falcons' three-game winning streak and dropped surging Atlanta to 6-5. Suddenly the Falcons, whose schedule is markedly more difficult in the second half of the season, look as fragile as the sprained left ankle suffered by quarterback Chris Chandler in the second quarter.

Chandler exited the Georgia Dome with his left foot in a soft, walking boot, and huddled over a pair of crutches. While it was defensive end Grant Wistrom who inflicted the most punishment -- lunging over Atlanta rookie guard Kynan Forney to submarine Chandler at the knee -- Bly was the guy who set the tone with the game's signature play.

The Falcons had just converted a third-and-10, on Chandler's 21-yard connection to tight end Brian Kozlowski at the Atlanta 43-yard line, when Bly swiftly reversed the fortunes. Laying back in the deep left half of the field as Rams coordinator Lovie Smith called a zone blitz, Bly saw wide receiver Tony Martin run a deep post, and out of the corner of his eye, he caught Terance Mathis crossing on a "race" route.

It is one of the Falcons' most productive combination routes and, when Bly noticed a safety was shadowing Martin, he came off his man and jumped Mathis' route. Weakside linebacker Mark Fields had dropped into the short zone, forcing Chandler to throw up the sideline, and Bly snatched the ball as he jostled past Mathis for inside position. He raced up the sideline for the second score of his NFL career, diving into the right front corner of the end zone to instantly promulgate a 180-degree change in momentum.

"To be honest," said Mathis, "(the Rams) are the kind of team where you want to come out and score first and show them you're going to challenge them. Just once, I would like to see them have to play us from behind, and that was our chance. But it didn't happen, and that hurt, because it was 'Here we go again' time mentally for us."

One can forgive the Atlanta bench, at the moment Bly plucked the ball out of the air, for experiencing a sickening feeling of déjà vu. In their five consecutive victories, the Rams now have outscored Atlanta by an average of 24.4 points. For the most part, that gaudy advantage has been carved out by the Rams' offense, but Bly's play settled down a secondary that came into the game minus both starting safeties.

Strong safety Adam Archuleta missed a second consecutive game with an ankle injury, and free safety Kim Herring didn't start because of a hip pointer. That meant right cornerback Dexter McCleon, who had never played inside except in "nickel" situations, opened the game at free safety, with backup Rich Coady at strong safety. Bly got just the fifth start of his career, alongside left cornerback Aeneas Williams.

	“	People stepped into the breach, and that's what this game is about, isn't it? But nobody stepped up bigger than Dre' (Bly), because that (interception return for a TD) got us off and running, and put a lot of doubt in their minds. ”
		— Aeneas Williams, Rams cornerback

The interception was the team-leading fourth for Bly, who's typically the "nickel" cornerback. Regarded during his college career at North Carolina as an inveterate gambler, Bly has hands some receivers would envy, and he knows what to do with when he latches onto the ball.

"Oh, I definitely know the direction to the end zone," said Bly, a loquacious defender and the perfect "nickel" cornerback. "Once I snatched it, nobody had to show me the way, I'll tell you that. But seriously, with everything we went through this week and in this game, it felt good to contribute the big play."

Indeed, if Bly knew the way to the end zone, there were times when secondary coach Ron Meeks wasn't quite certain he had enough ambulatory players to fill out his quartet. In the second quarter, Williams went out with a slight neck injury and, while he was being X-rayed, the St. Louis secondary resembled a Chinese Fire Drill at times.

Herring, who was only supposed to play in an emergency, was forced onto the field as McCleon moved back to corner. Fifth-round draft choice Jerametrius Butler, a youngster whose primary contribution has been on special teams, saw extended action until doctors decided Williams could return in the second half. At one point, Faulk claimed, he told the coaches that he was prepared to play in the secondary, if necessary.

"To say depth (in the secondary) was a concern would be an understatement," allowed. "We were running out of bodies."

Beyond the M*A*S*H unit of a secondary, the Rams played without starting strongside linebacker Don Davis and leading sacker Leonard Little and with three defensive linemen (including first-round tackle Damione Lewis) on injured reserve. Second-round selection Tommy Polley, who has now started at both linebacker spots and led both teams with 11 tackles Sunday, allowed that the high body count has made practices more difficult and forced implicit pressure on the able-bodied.

One would have expected, especially in the second quarter, for the Rams' defense to feel some fatigue from the paucity of substitutes and the number of snaps for which Atlanta was controlling the tempo. But despite 35 offensive plays and 176 yards in the first two quarters, the Falcons couldn't nudge the ball into the end zone, and the St. Louis defense did on Bly's spectacular individual effort.

In the second half, the Rams threw every blitz imaginable at Michael Vick, who again demonstrated he might not be ready to play regularly until the 2003 season. Vick ran for a team-high 52 yards and was electrifying at times, but Atlanta didn't guarantee $15 million for the first three seasons of his contract for a scrambling quarterback who puts himself in harm's way on such a regular basis. Or for a passer who is so scatter-armed.

By the second half, though, the game had been decided and the Rams felt they had weathered another game when manpower was scarce.

"People stepped into the breach, and that's what this game is about, isn't it?" said the always philosophic Williams, who returned in the second half to man his cornerback spot. "But nobody stepped up bigger than Dre', because that got us off and running, and put a lot of doubt in their minds."

As the Rams' young cornerback raced down the right sideline on the interception, one of the many St. Louis partisans who had made the trip to snatch up some of the 20,000 tickets left unsold Thursday held up a hand-lettered sign bearing a picture of a roadrunner.

It read simply: "Bly-Bly, Falcons."

Len Pasquarelli is a senior NFL writer for ESPN.com.